Take Me to Church
by airbendandsnap
Summary: "I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife." Zuko's a glutton for Mai's brand of punishment, and he's done everything to deserve it. Maiko one-shot.


Warnings: Slight spoilers up until "The Promise" comic series; BDSM elements; femdom; knives!

Disclaimer: Bryke is the Creator; I'm just a lowly wordbender.

AN: This Maiko fic was inspired by the song "Take Me to Church" by Hozier; I'd recommend reading the lyrics before the story if you're unfamiliar. This is my first A:TLA piece and my first time ever writing a sex scene ^_^ Any and all feedback is welcome. One shot, open to continuation if any ideas come up. Takes place after Zuko and Mai break up in "The Promise" comic.

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Zuko blinks up at the ceiling of his royal chamber, illuminated by a fine ray of moonlight that seeps in through the gap in thick red curtains. The elegantly embroidered bedding is too itchy, suffocating, and he wants to tear it off, tear his clothes off, tear his skin off. He hasn't been comfortable in weeks, but this is worse, knowing he has no one left to turn to in his state of restlessness—he's finally driven them all away.

He's left her before, but it was different then—he'd had a purpose. A mission. This time was senseless. He didn't keep secrets from her because he didn't trust her, he kept them because he didn't trust himself to hold back all the emotions he felt when confiding in her, her impassive stare betraying something he could never distinguish—concern or pity.

He throws the duvet cover off angrily, and sits up sideways off the bed, sliding his feet into red slippers with gold soles. Simple, like he is now, after those years spent away from all this royal pomp. Sometimes, being Fire Lord in the castle where Ozai once ruled feels like one of those nightmares where everything is almost normal, but slightly off in a way that makes his whole body numb with terror.

He pads out of his room, neglecting to put on a shirt. It's that point in time that is neither night or morning, and he trusts that everyone is asleep except for his night guards.

Well, them, and her.

The thick heat of the summer night enervates him as he steps out the door, feeling slightly crazed. He lifts his palm to the sky, conjuring a small flame to guide his way. He's past the point of worrying about her rejection. Even hearing her derisive laugh would be better than lying around thinking about her.

Mai's bedroom window is three stories above the stone patio where there sits an iron table with a large umbrella in the center and two iron chairs on each side. On humid summer nights like these, when they were very young, she used to sit outside at this table and chain smoke cigarettes through a long ebony mouthpiece after her parents had retired to bed. Zuko used to look out his window at her, wonder how anyone could make dying look like an art form, wonder if any concept could be more beautiful. This was before he was banished, and realized that the real art form was survival.

The patio is empty now, and Zuko can see a low light coming from her bedroom window. Candlelight. He wonders if she thinks of him every time she sees a flame. Stupid, he chides himself. She must see flames a dozen times a day. He thinks of her every time he sees a blade though, even if he's just shaving in the morning.

Zuko carefully moves the iron furniture to the sides of the patio. It's heavier than he expected, and he'll have to move it back when he leaves, but he can't risk ruining anything of Mai's, especially not when she's this pissed at him. He fire bends carefully with his hands and feet, propelling himself up to Mai's floor, where he grabs onto the iron railing of her balcony.

There was this love story that Zuko had seen performed by the Ember Island Players when he was a young boy, about lovers who ended up killing themselves. In one of the scenes, the girl is standing on a balcony, calling out to the boy. Zuko used to daydream about Mai standing here on her balcony, calling out his name, but that dream was crushed a couple years later when Mai saw the play herself and proclaimed it "the stupidest thing that's ever been written." Zuko was wounded.

He slips one leg over the railing, then the other, and looks into her window. Though the room is well lit, he can't see her anywhere inside it. He's about to walk toward it, when suddenly a large black figure drops swiftly from above and straightens up in front of him.

"Shit!" Zuko curses and jumps backward, his thighs catching on the railing. He feels himself start to go over, backwards and head first, and before he has time to react he's being yanked forward by his throat, landing back on the balcony hard with both feet. He blinks a few times, trying to make sense of the shape in the darkness.

"Scaling my walls? How romantic. I'm surprised you didn't try to climb my hair."

She steps forward, her face even paler than usual under the full moon.

"Mai," Zuko chokes, hating how broken his voice sounds. "What were you doing on the roof?" He'd planned to say other things, on the walk over, but he can't really remember any of them now, feeling like a moth pinned to a display board when she narrows her eyes at him.

"I heard the furniture scraping around down there. Didn't want to give you the chance to come up here and spy on me, so I disappeared."

"I didn't come up here to spy on you." His indignation strengthened his voice. "I came here to talk. Can I come inside?"

"Ah. Of course. Because you were always so great at communicating." She draws her long black dressing robe more tightly around her waist and slides the thick glass window aside enough for them to climb through. Zuko follows her, feeling like an impala going willingly into a lion's den.

Mai sits on the purple velvet chair in the corner of her room, leaving Zuko no seating options besides her rich violet-cloaked bed with the black lace canopy drawn open around it. He sits on it awkwardly, trying not to look at her, though she's staring at him. There are three tall candles melting on top of her bookshelf, their thin flames casting long, flickering shadows around the room. Zuko makes one of the flames a little smaller, then a little bigger, then returns it to normal. He has no idea how to begin this conversation, the one that burned with necessity inside him a half-hour ago.

After about a minute, Mai reaches toward the table next to her, picking up one of her throwing knives and a flat, rectangular stone. She begins sharpening the edges of the knife on the stone, producing a soft _slice_ sound with every stroke.

Zuko flushes, his pulse picking up speed. "What are you doing?"

Her eyes flash up to meet his. "The same thing I was doing before you interrupted me." She looks back down and continues working.

"Hey, wait. I really want to talk to you." She continues as if he hadn't spoken. "I just want you to know that I never meant to lie to you, or keep secrets. I was just afraid. I—am afraid." He swallows thickly. Mai is still sharpening her knife, looking down, but her strokes are slower now, and she seems to be listening.

"Something terrible happened to my mother. I'm not sure what, but I know my father was somehow involved. And I'm so afraid of becoming like him, so afraid of hurting you with my selfishness. It's hard for me to tell you anything that might hurt you, even if it's not my fault." Zuko fiddles with a tassel on Mai's bedspread, wishing she were sitting next to him.

 _Slice._ "You think your father killed your mother?" A crease appears between her eyebrows, as if this couldn't possibly be true, as if it must be.

Zuko swallows again. "Um. No, actually. I think my mother's still alive."

Mai looks up from her work, her knife hovering inches from the stone. The thought that she could throw it at him quicker than he could stop her is exciting for some reason. He must be fucked up from nerves.

"Why do you think that?" she asks, her voice deadly calm.

Zuko locks eyes with her. There's no point in trying to pretend: he's been keeping secrets from her for a long time.

"My father told me."

"When?" The way she says it sounds more like a statement than a question, like she already knows.

Zuko has the decency, or maybe shame, to break eye contact. "During the eclipse."

He doesn't need to look at her to know what her expression is like as she begins to laugh. It's low and sardonic, but full of real humor, a masochistic enjoyment of one's own bad luck.

"Zuko," she says almost sweetly, giving her knife a final swipe, "you're so pathetic."

She stands up and walks over to him, her robe sweeping. Embarrassingly, Zuko's eyes are burning, and he's afraid if he looks up at her, he'll start crying for real, which would be detrimental. He's already ruined his relationship; he doesn't need to destroy what's left of his pride.

She bends down in front of him, her hair un-styled and falling down around her face, framing her body. Her dressing gown gapes open at the chest, and he doesn't mean to look, can't really see anything anyway with his eyes rapidly blurring. She reaches her hand to his face and he feels something hard under his chin, realizes it's the handle of her knife. She uses it to slowly tilt his chin up, and stares into his eyes, hers gleaming. His lower lip trembles and he bites down on it before realizing that this makes him look even more vulnerable.

"Poor Zuko," Mai whispers. "Having to be Fire Lord at such a young age. You're still such a baby."

"That's—" Zuko gapes up at her. "How can you say that, after everything—"

"Shh." She takes the knife handle out from under Zuko's chin and flips it over, stroking the blade against his cheek. He closes his eyes, afraid to move, exhaling slowly. When his breath is let out he feels lightheaded.

"What other secrets have you been keeping from me?" Her voice is soft, tender, and completely unnerving, since she is still running the blade across his face, lightly tracing the skin. She's not even pressing hard enough to leave a mark, and yet his face feels like it's on fire where the tip of her knife touches it. It brushes against the edge of his scar, making his heart freeze.

"I've been keeping a lot of secrets," he breathes, his voice coming out in a gruff whisper.

"Why?" she whispers back, matching his tone.

"I didn't want you to hate me." Oh fuck, here come the water works. He feels the tears tickle the outer corners of his eyes and closes them.

Mai lowers her knife and runs her hand up the side of Zuko's neck, snaking her pointed fingernails through his hair and grabbing a thick handful. She tilts his head back until he opens his eyes, hovering her face over his. "Isn't that my choice? Whether I hate you or not? How dare you attempt to choose for me."

So she does hate him. Zuko lets the tears fall, doesn't even care anymore. He feels that fiery sensation on his cheek again, and looks up. Mai slowly licks her knife, which is glossy with his tears, staring down at him with an eyebrow raised like she's daring him to stop her. Her other hand is still knotted up in his hair.

"I'm the Fire Lord," he reminds her, trying to sound hard, though he's still crying. "It's my job to make tough decisions. To know what's best for my people."

"Aw, so I'm your people now?" Mai tugged harder on his hair, her lips almost close enough to taste now. He can see her gritted teeth, slightly sharp, especially the incisors. "How sweet! Except I don't think I'm quite that important. You see, _I_ think that ever since you've become Fire Lord, you care more about your _throne,_ and your _responsibilities_ , than you do about me."

Zuko breathes in her perfume; it's strange, how comforting the scent of her is even when she's got him in her death grip. He wants nothing more than to curl up to that smell, to nuzzle his face into her chest and never leave, to kiss her everywhere. "There's nothing I care about more than you." He looks up to meet her eyes, and when he does she looks wild, the normal coldness replaced by something rabid. If she were a fire bender he's pretty sure he'd be ash by now.

Suddenly he's being yanked off the bed and lands hard on the floor, on his knees with his face to the ground. He's too stunned to move until the toe of a shiny black shoe catches him under the chin, forcing his face up. Her long, slender leg is now free of the dressing gown, and he stares past it into her glowering face. "Prove it."

"What?" He's so disoriented by being thrown to the ground that he forgets what they had been discussing.

She reaches down and grabs him by his bare biceps, yanking him to standing position. "You say I'm the most important thing to you," she says, jabbing him roughly in the chest. "After all this time, you couldn't tell me you loved me until I was walking away. You say you keep secrets to protect me but you're only protecting yourself. I've had enough of your lies," she hisses. "I know there's someone else. At least I hope there's someone else, because if not then you're choosing being alone over me, and Agni knows you can't handle being alone." She pushes him again.

"There's no one else!" Zuko shoves her hand away. "There's never been anyone else, alright? You're my whole fucking world, okay, you're so beautiful and talented and smart, you're so much fucking smarter than me and I'm just trying to prove that I can do all of this—scratch that, _any_ of this—without you." He reaches forward and cups her face in his hand. She's still trembling with fury. "I can't though. I can't do anything without you. My night terrors have gotten worse. I'm more paranoid than ever. I should have opened up to you about all of this, about my mother, everything. I'm just so tired of being the one taken care of by you. In some small way, I was trying to take care of you by keeping you safe from my problems. Mai, you have to believe me. I worship you; you're like a goddess to me."

Mai's face is still flushed, but she's stopped shaking, no longer looks like she wants to claw his eyes out. "That's ironic, considering I'm one of 'your people.' Shouldn't it be I who worships you, O Fire Lord?"

"No," he breathes, wrapping an arm around her waist, his hand at the small of her back. "I worshipped you long before I was Fire Lord. I loved you when I was a kid."

Mai gives him a look, something in between pity and apology. He's beginning to think she'll always be a mystery to him when suddenly her lips lock onto his. He moans into her kiss, running his tongue against hers, sighing when she nibbles on his lower lip with those sharp small teeth.

Just as suddenly as it begin, it's over, and he finds himself pressed up against the wall by his throat. One of the things that always impressed and intimidated him about Mai was that she was strong enough to throw him around, even when they were young, or maybe he let her. Maybe he loved it. Maybe he still does.

She holds him at arm's length, her eyes dropping from his face to scan over his defined chest, strong arms, and cut stomach. Her pupils widen as her eyes travel along the v-shaped muscles that lead past the waistband of his pajamas. Zuko feels his whole body flush, particularly where her eyes are honing in on his crotch. He used to be pretty confident about his looks, until his father scarred him. Since then he's preferred to be shirtless whenever possible, to work on his body as a means of distraction from his face. He's noticed it had this effect on some women, but there's something different about the way it works on Mai. She knew him when he was a cute but scrawny kid. A banished and scarred traitor. The Lord of a nation. And she has always looked at him like something delicious she knows she has every right to devour.

She leans forward until her face is almost touching his again. "I want you to show me how you worship me."

"Show you?" He's growing hard in his pajama pants, worried that this isn't what she wants, but too turned on to stop it.

"Show me," she repeats, grabbing Zuko by his hair again. She drags his face to meet hers and kisses him deeply. Then she lowers his head until he has no choice but to bend his knees, kneeling at her feet. He looks up at her, slightly stunned. "Worship me," she whispers.

His dick now fully hard and grazing the floor, Zuko reaches up to Mai's hips and pulls her down so that she's sitting on the bed. He notices that one of the candles has gone out on the shelf behind him; he fire bends the flame back and dims all three of them, softening the lighting in the room. He picks her leg up by the slim ankle, her patent leather heels gleaming in the candlelight.

He presses kisses from her inner ankle up to the back of her knee, draping her leg over his shoulder. Mai leans back onto her elbows, and when he glances up at her he sees her watching his progress with a smirk. He runs his tongue along her pale inner thigh, making her stiffen, as if she's trying not to squirm. Her dressing gown's tie is coming lose, the garment threatening to spill open, hiked all the way up to her hips now. He can see her underwear, thin red silk too tiny to cover much. There's a dark wet spot right in the center. He grins wickedly, skips past it to lick her other thigh. He stands up and leans over her, tangling his fingers in her hair at the back of her head like she did to him, only much gentler, reverent. The delicate slope of her neck, her collarbones—she's almost too beautiful to touch. She laughs, like she can read his mind.

He smiles back, deferring to her. Leaning over her with her head in his hands, he reaches into the top of her dressing gown, finding it loose enough to allow him easy access. His hand encases her small breast completely, and he kneads it between his fingers, teasing her nipple into a point. He reaches his face down and circles her nipple with his tongue, grazing just the tips of his teeth across it.

Mai lets out a frustrated moan. She grabs his face, dragging it up to hers and kissing him. She bites his neck, hard, the kind of thing that would annoy him if he was in any other mood. She shoves him back down to the floor, rougher this time.

"Lick me," she commands, her voice ice cold as always but with a roughened edge.

Zuko's cock becomes so hard at this demand that he actually gets lightheaded. He grips Mai's thighs and takes a couple of deep breaths to center himself, but the smell of her is so intoxicating. He yanks her dressing gown roughly; the tie unravels and the gown drops, leaving her naked except for the silk panties and shiny black shoes. He takes off the panties and then grabs her by the knees and spreads them apart as wide as they will go, her smooth round ass still perched on the edge of the bed.

First, he traces the outline of her cunt with one shaking finger, staring at it in the flickering light. She's already so wet for him, her pussy lips bright pink and swollen. He gently moves his finger across the bud of her clit, which makes her opening flex. If not for his own swollen member leaking inside of his pajama pants, he could stay down here patiently observing forever.

He slides one finger into her cunt. She moans, lifting her legs up to take it at a deeper angle. He inserts another. She feels impossibly tight on his fingers; he can't imagine how she ever fit on his dick. He darts his tongue, allowing it to flicker on her clit for a brief moment before retracting it, doing this again and again.

"Oh, fuck yeah babe," Mai groans breathily. She reaches into his shaggy hair. He sucks on her pussy lips one at a time, reaching the hand that's not currently being drenched up to caress her tits. He finally attacks her clit, slurping and licking it, worshiping it like it's the sustenance he needs to survive. He feels her heels digging into his shoulder blades, and the pain gives him a head rush, makes him feel like he's going to come in his pants without ever getting inside her.

She pulls on his hair, hard, clenching his fingers so tightly in her body he feels like they might break off, which is fine, she can have them, she can have all of him. He keeps licking her hard, and suddenly she's writhing beneath his mouth, shrieking and spewing a stream of profanities she doesn't bother muffling, her heels scrabbling at his back. He continues to lick her, rubbing her from the inside, when she lifts his head away from her pussy, staring into his eyes in a way that's distinctly broken, wrecked from the orgasm.

He climbs onto the bed, pulling her on top of him. She wraps her slim hand around his throat, the points of her fingernails making contact with his skin in five tiny places as he rubs the head of his cock through her glistening slit.

"You're so hard for me," Mai whispers, squeezing gently. "You must really love eating my pussy."

"I do," Zuko breathed, his cockhead on fire as it brushes past her entrance, knowing he'll be inside any second now. "I want to lick every part of your body. Making you come turns me on more than anything ever has."

"Why?" Mai smiles at him, but the sharpness has left her eyes; they're foggy and glazed and happy.

"Because you are a goddess to me, and worshipping you is my one and only pleasure." He means it. So what if her style of affection is a little rough? He's a glutton for it, her brand of punishment.

"Ugh." She leans down onto her elbows, kisses under his eye where his scar is. "You're so fucking perfect." She slides down until Zuko's dick is pressing at her entrance. He can't take it anymore, and grabs her hips, lowering her slowly down onto his cock. Her pussy feels incredibly tight, but her orgasm has made it easy for him to slide all the way in, buried in her, his hipbones pressed against her inner thighs. She's so warm; he feels like he's disappearing inside her, away from all the bullshit responsibilities in his life. "You're pretty perfect yourself," he says.

"If I'm perfect, and you're perfect, then this…" she sighs, rocking back and forth on his dick.

"Is heaven," Zuko supplied, wrapping his hands around her small waist.

She laughs and leans down to kiss him. "You're so cheesy," she mumbles into his mouth. While they're kissing, he cups her asscheeks in each hand, squeezing tight as he plows into her. She ends up making sobbing noises into his ear—the one with the scar, maybe on purpose. He drives up into her and when he feels her squeeze and spasm around him he knows he can't take any more. He pulls her off of him and onto his stomach, jerking his dick in the direction of her ass. She licks his neck as he moans, his face contorted into a pained expression. It's embarrassing, but somehow it's not, because she's the one that made him feel this way.

After a couple of minutes Mai stand up and retrieves a towel from her closet, using it to wipe away the sticky fluid from her ass and from his dick. She's actually blushing. Zuko figures he probably is too. It wasn't the first time they'd had sex, but it was definitely the first time they'd bared themselves to one another, completely unguarded.

Zuko smiles at her lazily. "I've been wanting to do that to you pretty much all my life."

Mai laughed. "I sincerely hope that's not true. You sick bastard."

"Yeah," said Zuko, closing his eyes and smiling. He frowned, and opened them. "If I promise to tell you everything from here on out—no more secrets—does that mean we can get back together?"

"Um," Mai grinned. "Doesn't all this mean we're back together?"

Zuko's frown deepened. Like always, Mai was a mystery.

She kisses him between the eyes. "Yes. But no more secrets. If you stay the night you can tell me more about your mom. My parents will never even notice your here."

Zuko feels his chest begin to swell. Everything was finally back to the way it should be. No challenge would be too hard, as long as he had Mai in his life. "Sounds perfect."

"Great. Oh, and, Zuko?"

"Yes, Mai?"

"I don't hate you." She smiles at him, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

Zuko grins involuntarily. She really is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

"I don't hate you too."


End file.
